


Assassin

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He was shorter than I expected.<br/>Of course, people say the same about me</i><br/>An alternative ending to A Study in Pink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assassin

He was shorter than I expected.

Of course, people say the same about me. Still, he was short. He picked himself up from the floor, gave me one long glance then looked around him, slowly. The door through which he'd been thrown was shut. We were alone.

"You killed the cabbie."

He blinked at me, without noticeable emotion. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Boring." I hissed. 

He shrugged, patterned jumper shifting up to show a flash of checked shirt. Flannel. I wondered briefly what he'd look like in actual clothes. "If I had killed someone, would I be likely to admit it to a complete stranger? You might be the police." 

He had a point. Who was least useful? I pressed the intercom. "Raimont. In here."

He moved away from the door, hands curling in readiness. Raimont came in, closed the door behind him and I shot him in the head.

"See. I'm not the police."

"No." He dropped to one knee to check for a pulse, found none, stood up again, apprehensive but steady. PTSD, the records said. They were wrong. Doctor John Watson was more than he seemed, but I'd known that as soon as he shot my serial killer.

Now his gaze switched between my gun and my face. "What do you want with me?"

That rather depended on who he'd been taking orders from. I'm always on the lookout for a good assassin, but sometimes they aren't in a position to change employer. Sometimes a point needs to be made. At this juncture I was leaving my options open. I told him so.

"There's been a mistake. Several mistakes. I'm not any sort of assassin and I don't work for anyone. I'm a doctor."

I tossed the item in my pocket towards him. 

"It has your fingerprints all over it, Doctor Watson. It was in your pocket."

"Yes, OK," he admitted, with an thoroughly unprofessional sounding sigh. "That's mine. It's only my old service piece. I was in the army until a few months ago. I should have handed it back, but," he flickered a smile, "I'd got used to having one around. I wasn't expecting to ever use it. Not in London." He bent over to scoop it up. It was empty, of course.

"And yet you shot my cabbie with it."

He shook his head, my words slowly registering. "Hang on. Your cabbie? I thought he was just crazy."

He was either a good actor, or badly briefed. "Who hired you to kill him, Doctor?"

"No-one hired me. He was about to kill Sherlock."

Sherlock? Ah, Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft's wastrel sibling, a habitual drugs user dependent on his brother for money. He was reported to be dabbling in a bit of amateur psych profiling for a couple of the Met detectives. Not the sort of man that an ex-solider like Watson would normally take up with. "What's your connection to Holmes?"

John shrugged. "I only met him today, pretty much by chance. We were discussing a flatshare." 

"So how did you get from that to shooting my cabbie?"

"He's a consulting detective. The police were consulting him- I think- there was a drugs bust and it's all rather complicated. I don't really know any of these people. Anyway Sherlock went off with the cabbie and I went after them, because I though he'd get in trouble, and he did." A faint smile at that. 

Neat. He'd hooked up with Holmes on the pretext of this flatshare to get access to the police information on the cabbie operation, and crafted out of that a perfect innocent motive for the kill. I liked the way Watson operated. I still didn't know who he worked for, though. I was in no hurry; I was rather enjoying talking to this man.

"Have you met Sherlock's brother, yet?" I took the opportunity to sit down, gesturing to the seat opposite. Watson took it, cautiously.

"Yes." From the way he said it I imagined that Mycroft Holmes must have come as an unwelcome surprise. Discovering your patsy's brother is a senior secret service figure can really spoil an assassin's day. 

"What will happen, John- may I call you John?- if I let you go again?"

He looked surprised, then thoughtful. "I guess I'll move in with Sherlock, if that's still on." Keep the link to the Met. Good thinking. And Mycroft Holmes didn't intimidate him. This was the sort of hired killer I needed on the books; smart and courageous. If rather short.

"And the man you shot?"

He shrugged. "Was about to kill again. I doubt that the police will look too hard for the sniper. Sherlock knows it was me, of course."

"Why of course? Did you tell him?" 

He frowned at me. "I thought you knew about Sherlock. He deduces things from details that other people don't notice. He figured out that the cabbie was the murderer. I'm sure he knew who shot him as soon as he saw me."

The admiration clear in his voice surprised and somewhat disappointed me. "You said Sherlock was going to die. How?"

He blushed slightly. "Sherlock was going to take one of the pills. To prove he was right, I think." 

That didn't suggest much in the way of intelligence or judgement to me. I didn't like my assassin- I had already begun to think of him as mine- fawning after this third rate "detective". Sherlock would meet with an accident, I decided. 

"I've answered all your questions," he said with an edge of firmness. "I'd like you to either let me go or tell me who you are."

He hadn't told me the truth, obviously. I still knew nothing of his employer or the reason for the sabotage of my little game. Still, he'd told me very few lies. I looked at the jut of his chin and knew that I wouldn't get the rest of it without breaking him. His polite, toothless ultimatum could only be an obliquely phrased offer of an alternative solution.

"I think I'll let you go." I smiled at him. "For the moment. You'll talk to me again, at some point. I'll be sure to let you know when. I really think it would be unwise of you to kill any more of my people in the interim, Doctor John Watson."

He nodded, relief clear. "I can assure you that I have no intention of killing anyone." 

"Good."

I had my people escort him back to Baker Street, civilly. I'd arrange for some money to turn up in his account, enough to show him that I was a serious prospect as employer. The cabbie wasn't important; it had been a game, nothing more, and I was rather pleased with the way it had turned out. 

Doctor John Watson, my newest assassin. And I had a suspicion that the man would look good in Westwood.


End file.
